The Quest

[BigV]

It is all black here.

I'm at the nadir of my search at this point. It could certainly get worse from here, as my creditor's next billing cycle comes up dry.

I have nothing.

I've been slogging through the openings on Microsoft's site. 1004 positions matching my job agent's search results. I've applied to about 15 out of the first 40 so far. 1000+ jobs?! I'll read through them all and submit my resume for all the ones I wouldn't be ashamed to interview for. Some of them are definitely out of my league.

Which brings me to another question for the folks here. I have a couple of bare spots on my resume, especially in the area of Unix/Linux administration. I would welcome any suggestions that would give me a chance to improve that deficiency. I have a spare machine downstairs I could cobble together for hands on practice. I have extensive experience administering other systems so the basic concepts are already in place. Am I dreaming that to think that the bulk of the new information will be in the area of new tools and new terms to accomplish already known tasks? Or is it so alien that I'm better off starting with "See Tux run. Run, Tux, Run."?

I have another related subject I would like your input on. I have found myself several times reading the specs for a job and seeing much overlap, and then seeing a line like: "Requires xyz". Then I pass. I count myself out, don't apply. For those postings where the list of stuff I don't have is long, I think this is the right response. But for those where the mismatch is small, I have a harder time doing that.

What are your thoughts? How much of a mismatch between job posting requirements and your own experience would you tolerate and still apply? Applying to all is not practical, since I don't want to spam a given employer, and there's a real loss of credibility if I submit 1000 applications, where some of them are obvious mismatches. Plus, that's 1000 applications I have to track with follow ups, etc. What say you?